


this can remain the same

by ifitgivesyoujoy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Prostitution, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:21:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifitgivesyoujoy/pseuds/ifitgivesyoujoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The girls watch him in awe now, talking about the career he’ll have, the strings of men he’ll lay at his feet.  But Bucky’s not in the habit of stringing anything together.  He prefers to move moment by moment, fast enough that he doesn’t have to look back and piece together any patterns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this can remain the same

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song "Remain Nameless" by Florence + the Machine.

He’s ten years old, and it’s not James, it’s  _Bucky_ , and his mama doesn’t give a damn that he’s out for hours after the streetlights flicker on.  He already feels like Brooklyn belongs to him, with a knife he filched from the pawn shop in his back pocket and the streets all cool and empty and teeming with shadows.  He feels the ghosts of a million boys before him, boys who ran these streets until they reached the very edge and either turned back or fell off - boys who died, boys who survived, boys who grew into bums and bankers and shopkeepers and criminals.

His name is Bucky Barnes, and already that’s starting to mean something.  Already kids are pulling away, mothers are eying him with distrust, fathers are beating him with newspapers to get him off their stoop.  He shrugs and laughs and spits back before running, running, running until he trips and falls and skins himself on the pavement, and even then he just wipes his mouth and keeps running.

See, he’s already learned how to pick himself up.

~

He’s thirteen years old, and he stumbles from the bar with the scrape of a broken bottle across his cheek, and he’s laughing hard through the tears pricking his eyes.  It’s been months since he’s been home at all, and even longer since he’s felt like he had a place where he could use the term.  He’s got blood dripping down his face, dotting his shirt, and maybe he knows how to take care of himself but sometimes he still feels like he’s just a kid, like maybe crawling back to his mother with bruised ribs and bruised pride is better than this.

There’s this lady alone on the corner, miles of legs in a pair of pumps, and Bucky knows what that means so he doesn’t expect her to notice him.  But notice him she does, cooing like he’s a pigeon with a broken wing, a hand on his shoulder and blue eyes bright with sympathy through the layers of make-up.

And this is the sort of thing he’d normally shake off, but he can’t hide the tracks of tears down his face, and well, he can’t ever remember feeling this low.  So he acts low, lets her take his hand and lead him upstairs, lets her sit him down in a warm room and clean his cuts and loan him clothes two sizes too big.

If he’s going to stay anywhere for a while, here is as good a place as any.

~

He’s fifteen years old, and a steady hand is teaching him to draw thick dark lines around his eyes, to muss up his hair and pout his lips and leave his collarbone exposed.  Some of the girls think he’s too young, but then, some of the girls are practically younger, and he’s almost been caught pick-pocketing too many times for comfort.  As he gets older he’s starting to realize that he’ll never be invisible again, that disappearing into a crowd won’t get him what he wants near as quick as a little exposed skin and some well-timed eye contact.  So he lets them dress him pretty, takes in their advice without letting himself think about the realities, and pretty soon he’s out on the streets with the rest of them.

That first night is a blur, and with every kiss of stale cigar smoke he has to fight the urge to bolt - but he’s Bucky Barnes, and that still means  _something_ , so he digs his nails hard into someone else’s skin and lets himself drift up and away and doesn’t come back until there’s a wad of bills cool and clean in his hand.

It gets easier, like everything in his life.  He learns quick.  He figures out what people like, learns what he can do with a flick of his tongue.  He finds that he can take just as hard as he’s being taken, and he’s the one who gets the money in the end.  Fucking is just like anything else, like running until your muscles scream in protest, like throwing a punch in a crowded room and watching the chaos break out around you.  Bucky deals in physicality; Bucky understands the action-reactions of life.

The girls watch him in awe now, talking about the career he’ll have, the strings of men he’ll lay at his feet.  But Bucky’s not in the habit of stringing anything together.  He prefers to move moment by moment, fast enough that he doesn’t have to look back and piece together any patterns.

~

He’s nineteen years old, and he can’t keep the quirk of a smile off his lips when a big, shiny, expensive limo rolls up to his corner.  He knows it must be someone important - still, he can’t quite hide his surprise when he recognizes the face inside the car.

Howard Stark is somehow even more attractive up close, the slightest bit drunk and loose in his expensive suit, and Bucky takes more pleasure than he thought he would stripping it away from his skin.  They fuck on silk sheets that probably cost more than spending the night with him, and it’s better than it has any right to be, and when they fall apart they’re both shaking and smiling.

Bucky hates the idea of being kept, scowls at gifts and usually runs in the other direction if they start getting attached.  But Howard’s just…always there, every week like clockwork, and it’s good money anyways, and if Bucky finds himself staring a little too long at the hard lines of his lips, if his heart beats a little too fast as he looks up through his lashes to watch his face as he comes - well, who’s going to know?

~

He’s twenty years old, and the draft finds him just like anybody else, but then he doesn’t exactly go kicking and screaming.  He gets a gun in his hands and it just feels like the next step, like he was always going to end up here, running into the heat of a battle like he runs into everything else.  It’s easy when he doesn’t think, simple when he shoots blind, natural when he works himself so hard he can’t do anything but fall dead asleep at the end of the day.

He’s in and out of training, and then he’s in and out of a prison camp, and then one day he finds himself in and out of Howard Stark’s bed again.  It’s different this time, and they both know it but neither of them says it.  They hold each other just a little bit more desperately - everything’s just a little bit more intense, and Bucky’s still getting paid but deep down even he knows that isn’t the point anymore.  Sometimes he drinks too much, gets himself completely hammered so he can pretend he’s too wasted to move from that bed, just so he can wake up tangled up in a familiar body - and if he stopped to think about it, that’s the part that would scare him more than anything.

There’s this kid leading him battle now, and he wears a pretty dumb costume but he gives off this vibe like he’s too good for this war, too good for the sad sick broken people around him.  Bucky hates that, except that he doesn’t, and he follows him without question because some days it feels like the only right thing to do.  Sometimes he catches himself staring at Steve Rogers without thinking about it, biting his lip and feeling like there’s some mystery to him he’s missing.

And that’s it, really.  Bucky Barnes still has his name, but in a war this big he isn’t sure that means much anymore - and he isn’t sure he really minds.  There’s nothing left for him to run.  Brooklyn will burn if they don’t win this war, and even if they do he might not make it out to see it again.  He’s a number in an army - he’s a warm body in a rich man’s bed - he’s a stupid kid fighting for the sake of fighting just like he always has.  He’s a lot of things, and in the end he doesn’t think any of them are really going to matter.

There really isn’t anything memorable about his name.


End file.
